Chapter 14

I'm getting tired of this. It's hot and sticky, I stink and so does the rest of my unit, and above all, I'm bored out of my skull.

We've been walking in this jungle for days, with no break except to eat and sleep, and with nothing to show for it. We've found no enemy camp, we've seen nobody, and we're not allowed to talk unless extreme emergency. The fact that the other five men in my unit, our sergeant included, are making such a racket just walking that trying to be silent is a waste of time has so far eluded said sergeant. He also refuses to rely on my hearing anybody close by well before they hear us.

My head snaps up when I pick up a human sound. I accelerate my step to level with Sgt Wilkinson and tap his shoulder. He stops the march and bends a bit for me to whisper in his ear.

"I hear someone at one o'clock, a few minutes off yet. Boots on mud."

His eyes widen briefly before he cocks his head.

"I can't hear a thing," he whispers. "Are you sure?"

He knows I can hear better than most people, but he can't seem to come to term with just how much better. I will my eyes not to roll as I nod.

He turns to the others and signals for quiet, then turns to head for one o'clock. I'm about to resume position but he grabs me and gestures that I'm to stay next to him.

We just about tiptoe for a while and we get within visual range without our quarry noticing us, as evidenced by his unchanged pace, direction, and pulse. He has no idea we're here. Sadly for him, he's wearing an enemy uniform and carries one of our guns, indicating that he might have run across a different unit and may have information to relay to his superiors. Even worse for his survival odds, he's in a clearing and we have as clear a shot as we could wish.

"Anybody else around?" Sgt Wilkinson asks me.

I listen out. I can just make out a group of people far off in the direction the lone soldier is walking. Metal clanking, heavy steps, voices… his camp.

"He's heading for camp. I can barely make it out," I mouth to him.

He frowns and takes out his gun and silencer, fitting one with the other. I put a hand on his arm to stop him. I'll never understand why soldiers act as though these things are actually quiet. They're nowhere near as loud as regular guns, granted, but they still make a pretty loud noise, and so does the bullet if it hits something hard, which happens quite often when anybody else than a sniper takes the shot.

"That's still noisy," I summarize in a breath. I take out my bow and an arrow, aim for the artery in his neck and shoot.

The arrow goes through him like butter and lands in the soft ground just short of the other side of the clearing. The soldier's heart stops and he crumbles.

I hear grunts, people shifting, sharp intakes of breath. Voices.

"I don't know... The rest of us all have bullet wounds, a SWORD went through my leg, and ol' Snakes didn't get a scratch."

The sound of a kick on metal. Vibrations against me. I realize my eyes are open when I notice a sharp blade in front of my face.

"You're losing your touch, Gung-Ho. He's up already."

A face behind the sword, a prick on my arm. I try to jerk away, only to hit the wall behind me.

I don't have time to make sense of what's happening before the drug takes effect and I fall asleep.

I grab the picture, just to get a rise out of him. The sergeant gave us leave to whisper again, I think partly because he's finally realized I'd hear people approaching well before they'd hear us.

And yet, Chatterbox has just been staring at that picture of his sister since we've stopped. I know he misses her, but moping isn't going to get us home any faster. I miss my family too – I've even taken to imagining my father dying while I'm away – but I'm not about to allow myself to moan the night away.

So, I snatch the picture out of his hands and snort.

"You know, the more I think of it, the more I think she can't be your sister. She looks nothing like you: SHE's cute," I say.

He chuckles and grabs the picture back.

"Keep this up and I'm going to have to punch you," he jokes.

"Oh, come off it. She's your twin, not your baby sister. You don't get to be the overprotective big brother."

"Sure I do. She was born a couple of minutes after me," he replies.

I snicker. The sergeant shoots us a dirty look to signal us to be quieter.

"You couldn't punch me if you tried, you know," I tease, whispering lower than ever.

"Yeah," he sighs. "What martial arts did you study anyway? I've never seen an arrow go that fast or that far."

"It's my family's own discipline. I bet you'd be good at it... would you like to learn?"

"What, you're going to teach me? Here?"

"Not here, you dolt. You'd be too tired to walk. I mean when I go back home. We have a lot of students… you could be one. I'm going to be a teacher, so yeah, I could teach you."

"You're serious."

I nod. I briefly wonder if I'll get away with inviting a student with no approval, but brush the matter from my mind. If worse comes to worse, he'll be put on probation. Just the same, I'll write tonight to give them advanced warning.

I clench my jaw when I realize I automatically thought of writing my uncles instead of my father. They outrank him, but just the same, the normal thing for me to do would be to write him and let him go to them.

What is wrong with me? Why do I keep finding myself acting as though my father is dead? I wouldn't know if he was, unless his ghost visited me, so why is it that part of me is so certain that he is?

"Do you sometimes wonder if your family's okay?" I ask Chatterbox.

"All the time," he answers. "It's normal. You're in danger, and you can't see them and you hardly ever get any news, so your brains start thinking they're in danger too. You just start thinking danger is normal. It's like you don't remember that some people aren't in danger all the time like we are."

I do think it's the most I've heard him say in one go, ever. I raise an eyebrow at him. His reply doesn't help me at all – father's job technically puts him in harm's way on a daily basis – but the way he said it makes it's obvious that it's helping him. I nod, hoping to look like I've been illuminated by his wisdom, and quickly change the subject back.

"So, what do you say? Will you come?"

"Depends. Do YOU have a cute sister?" he teases.

"My cousin is cute as a button," I say, smirking. My tone gives it away and he smirks back.

"How old is she?

"Just turned 12," I admit, grinning. "Seriously, though, what do you say?"

He shrugs. "I'll think about it."

I bite my tongue, trying to decide how to tell him exactly what I'm offering him so that he'll believe me.

"We don't charge students," I start. "They're our strength when they start improving. The bigger the clan, the better."

"How do you make a living?"

He really has a talent for going straight to the point.

"Odd jobs, mostly personal protection and security."

He frowns thoughtfully and thinks for a bit.

"Let me get this straight," he says. "Your family teaches martial arts for free, the kind of martial arts that includes being able to shoot an arrow and make it go almost as fast as a bullet, with a bow. Not a crossbow, just an old fashion bow. And the training is really demanding."

I nod. Goodness, he's going to have a sore throat by the end of this.

"And you do that because you want the clan to be bigger. Strength in number. Right?"

I nod again.

"And to make money, you work on contracts, mostly as bodyguards or guards."

"Yep. My father does that full time, some teachers do it every now and then – I don't think I will, I don't like it much – and some advanced students can do some of the less dangerous contracts too. They usually keep most of what they make, but even then, we still get a commission."

We're still whispering, so he's the only one hearing all this.

"This needs to stay between us," I tell him, just in case it's not obvious.

This seems to be the last piece of the puzzle he needed to confirm the truth.

"You're a ninja," he breathes in a shocked voice. "An actual, real, ninja."

I smile and nod.

"I thought you should know before you made a final decision on my invitation."

I hear noises and voices again.

"…prisoner, and it's not Bludd or…"

I can feel movement, and it's making me feel sick.

"…Duke. I just got lucky, he wasn't even breaking…"

I have no idea where I am, my head feels like it's full of cotton.

"…not like the others are NOT dangerous. Fact is, he wasn't your prime…"

I want to sleep, but the voices are keeping me awake. I want to tell them to shut up, but I can't find the strength to talk.

"…Snake Eyes to keep him busy. I underestimated Bludd. Two of us got shot before we…"

Snake Eyes. The name reminds me he tried to kill me, and I notice he's here - right next to me, in fact. My eyes fly open.

He's holding his sword by my neck, and as soon as my eyes open, he kicks the bench I'm on.

"Where…" I start, then have to stop, out of breath. Why am I so weak? Why don't I have any idea how I got here? Did he really try to kill me? If so, why am I alive? Who are the others here?

The questions make my head spin. A man steps in front of me and flashes a light in my eyes. I close them and try to jerk away, but I can't move a muscle.

I feel a prick on my arm, and the voices fade away again.

I'm in the middle of a dream when I hear them – it doesn't fit what's going on in the dream, and I snap awake.

I recognize the sound before my eyes are even fully opened – hand bombs, thrown in our direction. I'm screaming before the first one goes off.

The four others who were asleep seem to take forever to move. The sentry is nowhere to be seen or heard. The bombs start going off just as we're scrambling away from the middle of the camp.

The noise level is unreal – there seems to be no end to the bombs, and on top of that, they're firing at us. I can't hear the individual bullets, except those that eventually make it within a foot of me, and by then, sheer luck is the only reason they don't get me. I kick a bomb that lands in front of me towards the trees, expecting it to blow up on my foot and again, being incredibly lucky.

The sergeant is screaming for retreat but doesn't seem to know where to go - the gunfire and bombs are coming from all around us. We've been mostly stamping around for several seconds that feel more like several minutes. I can't believe we're still alive and as a matter of fact, I only see one more silhouette still moving other than the sergeant and myself. I scan the camp, but I see more parts and blood than full bodies – we're obviously down to three.

I don't even know who the third survivor is, I can't hear him over the explosions and the gunfire. For all I know, my best friend is dead.

"THIS WAY!" the sergeant screams, taking off in what seems to be a random direction. There's some gunfire coming from there, and to me, it looks like he's just taking his chances because anywhere is better than right where we are. I can't fault the reasoning but that doesn't mean I can't do anything to improve our odds.

I dash towards the third survivor and grab him by the wrist. I almost cry in relief – it's Chatterbox. I drag him along back to where the sergeant is and let go of him long enough to throw every smoke bombs I have around us, concentrating on the front. I swing my arms around to grab both their wrists again and I move us towards the side of the smoke before letting the Sergeant merge us into a line heading straight forward. The gunfire never stops, but it is concentrated where we were a few seconds ago and someway, somehow, we make it out of the circle of our attackers.

To think I used to scoff at all the evasion and escape training I was put through… not that we're out of trouble yet: thanks to the still air, my cloud of smoke is still just as thick as it was, but we've cleared it and the enemy soldiers weren't dumb enough to stay in it. They've been backing out while firing, and as a result, 10 of them have spotted us and are running after us. I start turning to return fire, but the sergeant shoves me forward.

"TOO MANY. RUN!"

I disagree, but he's in charge. I keep running. At least, now that we're in movement, the enemy has no clear shots at us – the trees are shielding us, both visually and physically.

I don't know how long it takes to lose our pursuers – we keep running all night anyway. The other two start stumbling near dawn, and finally, have to stop. I stop right along and peel my ears, trying to detect our enemy. I sigh in relief when I can't hear them at all.

My relief is short lived – Sergeant Wilkinson is radioing in, calling for pick-up, and it suddenly hits me that we left our fallen comrades behind when we ran off.

Our fallen comrades... The thought rolls around my head for a bit, translating itself into less gentle language. They're dead and we left their bodies where they lay. We ran off like cowards, we abandoned them. They were our brothers in arms, and we didn't even TRY to ensure their remains would be honoured. I'm disgusted with us.

I sit down heavily next to Chatterbox and I'm just as silent as him the whole time the sergeant is busy on his radio. He finally turns back to us and sits down in front of us.

"Pick-up will be here in an hour. There's a clearing up ahead, just a few minutes walk away. Tommy, you tell me when you hear the chopper and we'll start heading there."

I nod. Now that he's issued his orders, Wilkinson falls into the same silence as us.

I'm the next one who says anything, about 45 minutes later, to let them know the chopper is on the way.

"How far off? In minutes? Can you tell?" Wilkinson asks.

"At least 15 minutes yet, I think."

He glances at his watch. "Then we start walking in 10."

He looks us both in turn and his face closes. Obviously, he's about to try to comfort us and he has no clue how to do so because he'd need someone to comfort HIM, first.

"You want to talk about it?" he asks. It's a bit of a cop-out and he clearly knows it. He's at least guaranteed Chatterbox won't want to chat.

True to form, Chatterbox shakes his head without even looking up.

"Do you think they'll mind that we left their bodies?" I ask.

"I think they wouldn't have wanted us to get killed in a vain effort to bring their remains home."

I nod, but I'm not sure I believe him.

"We didn't even try. We just ran."

"We'd be dead if we'd tried. Besides, I ordered you to run. If they're mad at someone, it's me."

I nod again.

"Speaking of the fact we survived… good job. But where did you get smoke bombs?"

"Home," I say with a shrug.

He doesn't look satisfied, but he doesn't push the issue.

The sound of the distant chopper has mutated to the sound of being inside a helicopter. There are voices again and I still have no clue what's going on. I'm aware that I woke up twice already, and that I've been drugged back to sleep both times, and that Chatterbox - or rather, Snake Eyes - is here. That's pretty much it. I don't make a move, trying to delay my next dose of whatever they've been shooting into me long enough for some of my wits to come back.

Things gradually fall back into place. I was fighting with Snake Eyes. He was trying to kill me – I have to concentrate to keep my face neutral at the thought - but another Joe knocked me out. I'm their prisoner, then. And they're bringing me somewhere, and I'm being drugged so I won't make trouble.

Armed with that much information, I start paying attention to the voices around me. Most are just people I don't know chatting about this and that. Only one is of any interest – it just sighed and encouraged someone else to get started on something.

"You realized we were looking for prisoners. Prime objective was Bludd and the Commander, secondary was capturing someone who might tell us where the new Cobra base is or at least where Bludd is," the voice says.

Fabric shifts right where I know Snake Eyes' head to be. He must have just moved his head, but I'm not sure which way.

"Confirmed. I'm told you were trying to kill him, even after the Commander escaped and he was the only possible prisoner we had left. Is that correct?"

Another noise of fabric moving against skin, just like the last one.

"Confirmed. Is it true that you had to be physically restrained after Gung-ho knocked the prisoner unconscious, because you were still trying to kill said prisoner?"

It takes all my willpower not to react when he nods again, without so much as a hesitation. I need to get a grip – this shouldn't be a surprise. He's been told to kill me for eight years. I know this, I've known it all along, so why is it still a shock?

The voice sighs.

"Confirmed. Why? Look, I can understand that you don't think he'll talk, but you had your orders. I have mine. This mission was about capture. This one is probably the one I wanted the least, but if he's all we've got, we need to bring him in. Alive. You knew that. If you were anyone else, I'd have you tied up too until a court martial." He adds the last bit in a harsh whisper that I'm guessing only Snake Eyes is meant to hear.

Well, this is interesting… I don't know whether to be proud of my brother for having a good enough record to deserve this kind of treatment or to be irritated at the fact he always seems to be the favourite of anybody in charge.

I hear the scratch of pen on paper – Snake Eyes is writing his response. Whatever it is, it sounds angry. He rips a piece a paper and hands it at the person talking to him. From the way that person has taken pain to put voice to Snake Eyes' nods by saying 'confirmed' after each of them, I have a reasonable hope that he's recording the conversation and that he'll read out loud what Snake Eyes wrote. I'm not disappointed.

"You have no idea how dangerous he is, and you won't be able to keep him." A sigh. "Snake Eyes, for all we know, this one is a different ninja than the one Gung-ho fought before." The man sounds like he's just about run out of patience.

"He IS dangerous, Duke. You didn't see him fight back against Snakes," another voice pipes in.

"Snake Eyes didn't know he wouldn't manage to kill him until he started trying," Duke replies. "He made the decision to go against orders before he had any reason to think his opponent all that dangerous."

Snake Eyes, in the meantime, has been writing again. He hands another piece of paper to Duke and steps closer to me. I feel a blade on my throat again.

"I know him, and I'm guessing Cobra only has ONE ninja. And he's awake," Duke reads.

I open my eyes, with a lot more difficulty than I would have imagined. Even though I'm awake, my strength is obviously still gone.

"Aww, Snake Eyes, you noticed. I'm touched you're paying attention," I mutter.

Duke plants himself in front of me and stares into my eyes. I force my eyelids to stay up to stare back.

"What's your name?" he barks.

"Storm Shadow," I reply, surprised he didn't already know.

"How many ninjas work for Cobra?" he asks.

"Wouldn't you like to know," I chuckle.

He sighs and rubs his forehead.

"Doc, sedate him again," he says. "I don't want him to so much as twitch until there's at least twenty of us guarding him."

Obviously, he's decided to work on the assumption Snake Eyes is right about me for now.

'Doc' steps close, syringe in hand. He's the one whose face I saw the first time I woke up here, the one who told Gung-ho he was losing his touch. The drug, as before, makes everything fade away in seconds.

I hate helicopters. It's not that I hate flying, I don't mind that. It's not even that being a passenger in the back of one is not comfortable – I couldn't care less about that.

They're undeniably useful. The one we're running towards, in particular, is saving our skins: with enemy soldiers looking for us and half of us already gone, we need out of here.

But they're just SO noisy. Even now that this one has landed, it's still making a racket because it hasn't shut down its engine. I can't hear much of anything else, and worse, I can't imagine anyone within a 10 miles radius doesn't know exactly where we are now. And because I can't hear a thing besides the noise machine, I wouldn't know if enemy soldiers were running towards us right now.

There's nothing for it, of course, but to run to the chopper as fast as we can, especially once we're in the clearing it landed in.

The sergeant gets us to clear the trees together and just instructs us to run as fast as we can. Following the instructions, I'm on the chopper before they're halfway there.

That's when the gunfire starts. I start responding in kind, but they're protected by the trees and by Chatterbox and the sergeant who are in my way. They still have about 30 to 40 strides left to get on board. It feels like they're walking in slow motion.

The sergeant starts pulling ahead because Chatterbox is trying to fire at the enemy while running. I think I'll join in with the Sergeant in telling him off once we're out of here – he's supposed to be running as fast as he can, not stupidly playing hero.

The sergeant is only about 5 strides away when the would-be hero suddenly jerks and crumbles to the ground. My irritation at him instantly gives way to blind panic.

He's been hit. He's not moving. I can't tell if his heart is still beating. For the second time in less than a day, I have no idea whether he's alive or dead.

The picture of his sister that was tucked in his hat, that he considers a good luck charm, flutters away.

The Sergeant doesn't notice and just keeps running.

I'm out of the chopper before he gets there. He looks behind him and his eyes widen. He grabs my arm and yells at me to leave him. He looks horrified to be giving the order.

I can't even answer. I twist free and run towards Chatterbox. He can't be dead too, he just… can't. And if he is, I'm not leaving him behind like the others. I've left my gun in the chopper – I dropped everything to run faster, without thinking – so once I get to Chatterbox, I grab his gun as I'm draping him over my shoulders. He moans and twitches. I laugh in relief and run back to the chopper backwards, firing at the enemy troops and dodging the bullets.

I make it back to the helicopter, deposit Chatterbox on the floor, locate his wound in his right side and start bandaging him, completely oblivious to anything else that's going on until he's wrapped up to my satisfaction.

It's only then that I notice the sergeant is staring at me with wide eyes.

Author's notes:

Yikes. I didn't realize until I put it in its own document how long this part was. I hope you don't mind flashbacks! If you do, sorry about that… there won't be any more of them for a while now (that I can think of).

A couple of parts back, I mentioned that Storm Shadow can't exactly walk into an ambush. Pairing that with the idea that ninjas don't just walk on landmines (according to Storm Shadow in the comic books, anyway) and my own feeling that Tommy wouldn't have been enough of a jackass to sense landmines but let his buddies walk on them without so much as warning them, I had some serious tinkering to do for that scene. I wrote 3 completely different ones (the other two won't end up as bonuses, I deleted them by mistake) and I was ready to pull my hair out at one point. I hope you like the final result.

I'm expressing my gratitude to reviewers by sending them bonus material. I send it by replying to the reviews, so I'm afraid I can't send anything to unsigned reviews. If you don't want to receive anything, you can still review – just say you don't want the bonus and I'll spare you from it. :D